Like Ships in the Night
by Calai'di
Summary: Soulmates AU. Fate would always ensure that soulmates found each other. Even if it had to try again...and again...and again...and again... V/Gauche, background Mizael/Kaito
1. Passing By

**Paring:** V/Gauche, background Mizael/Kaito

**Rating:** T

**Summary: **Soulmates AU. Fate would always ensure that soulmates found each other. Even if it had to try again...and again...and again...and again...

* * *

**Like Ships in the Night**

_Part 1 / Passing By_

The first time they met was in Heartland Tower. One day, just as Gauche and Droite reached the training room for their daily dueling practice, the doors slid open and a pair of boys around their age walked out, so engrossed in their conversation that Droite had to step out of the way to avoid a collision. Gauche easily recognized the shorter one as Tenjou Kaito, Dr. Faker's oldest son—who else had hair like that? But the other, with his braided, silver hair and deep blue eyes and an easy smile on his lips, Gauche didn't think he'd ever seen before.

"Who is that?" Gauche wondered aloud once the pair were out of earshot. They had walked past and away down the hall without ever glancing toward the two they had nearly run into.

Droite, of course, paid more attention to the goings on around the Tower than he ever did and answered instantly, "That's Byron Arclight's son. You know, the scientist who's been helping Dr. Faker with his research? I've heard that Christopher works as their assistant sometimes too."

Gauche scowled at their backs as they turned a corner down the hall and disappeared. He wasn't sure what it was about the scene that irritated him. That there was another kid their age getting some kind of special treatment? (Of course _Kaito_ got special treatment, he was the boss's _son_ after all, but another one?) That the two of them hadn't even looked at him and Droite, like they weren't worthy of being noticed? That even though they had both come out of the training room, only Kaito looked beat up, so what had Christopher even been doing? Was he just that good? Had he just been standing on the sidelines?

Whatever it was, watching the two of them together gave Gauche a bad taste in his mouth. And he hadn't even known Christopher existed ten minutes ago.

But he couldn't spend any more time wondering about it, because then Mr. Heartland called them into the room, and the hours of duel practice that came after all but wiped that silver braid out of his mind.

* * *

The second time was several months later, also on the way to duel practice. This time Gauche came across Christopher in the hall and they were both alone. Droite had already gone ahead to the practice room, and Kaito was training with them today, so he would also already be there. Christopher was walking determinedly in the opposite direction.

It took Gauche a moment to remember where he'd seen him before. For some reason, they just didn't cross paths very often, and while Gauche had seen glimpses of him with Kaito a couple times after that first time, he hadn't seen the other teen at all in the past month or so. He'd kind of forgotten Christopher was even around.

Now, with both of them alone in the hallway, Gauche felt an urge to introduce himself. Maybe he would see the other teen a little more often if Christopher knew he existed too. But as Christopher drew near, the words died in his throat and the hand he'd raised to wave hung awkwardly in the air.

The last time they had been this close, Christopher had been all smiles (though Gauche still wasn't sure why it irritated him that those smiles were directed at Kaito). Now, his eyes were red and swollen and set into dark circles from a severe lack of sleep. His perfect braid was messy and loose, and his lab coat was wrinkled and hanging off one of his shoulders. His mouth was set like he would never smile again.

Christopher glanced up when he was almost on top of him. Immediately, he turned his head away, hunched up his shoulders, and quickened his steps. Gauche could only watch silently as Christopher sped past him, seemingly determined to get as far away from him as quickly as he could without outright running.

His hand dropped awkwardly back to his side as Christopher disappeared around a corner. He was already late for duel practice by the time he could move his feet again.

* * *

He never saw that silver hair again in Heartland Tower. Kaito was suddenly angry and bitter, ruthless in his duels and cold toward everyone but his brother, but he refused to say why. Life continued the way it always had for everyone else. Mr. Heartland kept them all busy enough that Gauche had no time to worry about who may or may not have vanished without a trace.

The small sense of loss he felt and didn't understand faded quickly, and he had soon forgotten about those pretty blue eyes entirely.

* * *

It was the guy who had kidnapped Haruto.

Gauche froze as he stepped back into the party room behind Tsukumo Yuma and his friends and spotted the silver hair gleaming in the corner. There was no mistaking it; that man fit the description Yuma had given him. Then the crowd shifted and he saw that the man was speaking to Kaito—_touching_ Kaito, as if he did it every day—and he was even more sure.

That was the guy. He actually had the audacity to show up at an event like this, like he hadn't done anything wrong.

Gauche clenched his fists and stomped down the stairs. Most of the party-goers moved out of his way easily enough, some more nervously than others, as he marched through the room toward that secluded corner, intending to give that silver-haired man a piece of his mind. Kaito wouldn't thank him for butting in on his conversation, but when had he cared about what Kaito thought anyway?

When the last person got out of his way, however, all he saw was Yuma standing there, looking around hopelessly. Kaito and the silver-haired man were gone.

Gauche caught glimpses of that hair here and there the rest of the night, but somehow, despite the confined space, he never was able to catch up to the man. And after that kid Tron showed up, the rest of the night was such a disaster that there was no hope of finding him in all the commotion. By the time most of the guests had left, he was also long gone.

* * *

Gauche was determined to catch up with the guy during the duels the next day. That guy had hurt Haruto and made him and Droite look like fools, and he was _going_ to get some answers, damn it, even if he had to follow the guy around the whole track. And then he was going to beat him and knock him out of the tournament. A guy like that had no right being in this tournament any longer.

That was the plan, anyway. V turned out to be a better duelist than that—or a more annoying one, anyway. He had counters for everything, but he hid behind them and refused to summon a single monster to face him head on. It was like running headlong into a passionless wall over and over. One that refused to look at him, no matter what he tried to throw at it.

He could see a crack in it. Maybe it was the way V smirked before activating a counter-trap once or twice; maybe it was that, even though he acted like this whole duel was beneath him, he didn't even attempt to leave or finish it quickly. But he could see it, and the more he ran headlong into that wall, the more he wanted to break it open. He wanted just one genuine reaction, just one attempt to fight back—

He wasn't the one who broke it. It was Yuma. Then moments later, V was gone.

Gauche gritted his teeth as watched the taillights of V's coaster car disappear into the darkness. Just when he thought they might make some progress—

But he couldn't hold it against Yuma. He was just trying to help. And, to be fair, Gauche probably would have lost there if Yuma hadn't come along. He didn't like it, but he really had been at the end of his rope.

He sighed irritably as he followed Yuma through the darkness to the Trap Point he'd found to restore his lifepoints. He'd just have to get that asshole back later, when they could have a proper duel and he couldn't escape so easily.

* * *

V never appeared at the end of the day, once all the duels were over. He'd disappeared without a trace after his duel with Kaito.

It didn't really matter. Gauche was too busy looking after Droite in the hospital to care about that guy anyway.

* * *

After Tron's duel with Yuma, after the whole WDC was over and Yuma was crowned the champion, no one heard from that family again for a long time.

* * *

"Gauche," Droite said one night not long after they arrived in Spartan City for a tournament there, "has this gotten lighter?"

She grabbed his hand and tugged his arm out between them so she could get a better look at the words scrawled on his forearm. Gauche glanced down as well, trying to ignore the way his heart suddenly felt like it wanted to burst out of his chest. He hadn't actually looked at those words in a while. For one thing, it was the first time in a long time he even had bare arms while he was awake for any longer than it took to shower and get dressed.

For another, he'd stopped paying much attention to them a long time ago. They were supposed to be the first words his soulmate would say to him, if he ever met them, assuming that was a real thing that really existed. Gauche had his doubts, although the words themselves were real enough.

When he'd been young, he used to stay up at night, long past when Droite fell asleep, and stare at them in the moonlight, wondering what kind of person his soulmate would be. Someone who dueled, he was sure. Someone he wanted to duel, because it could only be a response to a challenge. Someone who spoke Japanese, which was good, because he didn't speak much else.

And that was about it. It was a pretty generic sentence, after all. He couldn't get much from it.

But after a while, he'd stopped paying attention to it. Stopped hoping for it. It wasn't Droite, he knew that for sure, and the older he got, the more he didn't like that. He liked Droite. He wanted it to be her. But it wasn't.

At least he could take solace in the fact that Droite's wasn't Kaito either. They'd all compared words once, and their first words to each other hadn't been the ones on their arms (although Kaito's first words to Gauche had been shockingly close).

Whoever it was, they were taking their sweet time in showing up in front of him. Or so he'd thought. But if Droite thought the words looked fainter, didn't that mean they'd already met and he'd missed it? They were supposed to slowly fade into plain scars once they'd met and spoken to each other for the first time.

Droite ran her fingers over the words on his arm, looking at them closely, but the more Gauche looked, the more disappointed he felt. _Maybe_ they were lighter. He couldn't really tell. He hadn't really looked at them in a long time. And when Droite pushed her sleeve up to compare, he really lost heart. He didn't see much difference at all between the two.

"I guess," he said finally, but only because she was looking so hopeful for him and he couldn't outright say no to that. "But I don't remember anyone saying that to me."

_"Hmph. You plan to fight me?"_ That could have been anyone. He'd dueled loads of people in the last few months, especially during the WDC. When he looked at those words, he thought he heard a certain voice saying them—deep and arrogant—but the identity of it slipped out of his grasp as soon as he tried to remember it.

Still, if they were a duelist, they'd probably cross paths again eventually.

* * *

"Aniki, what about this one?"

Gauche turned his head as he passed by the bakery. That voice sounded familiar somehow in a way that made it seem out of place here in Spartan City, but he couldn't quite place it.

But whoever had spoken was gone. He thought he saw a flash of silver hair disappear behind the door to the bakery, near enough to the ground that it had to have been strikingly long, but that wasn't the hair that belonged to that voice. He had an impression of red and yellow, not white.

Unfortunately, he didn't have time to hang around and play detective. He had an autograph signing—an official one, not the impromptu crowds of kids eager to get close to their hero—to celebrate his win in the tournament, and Droite would absolutely kill him if he was late.

He turned away from the bakery and hurried off down the street.

* * *

Gauche and Droite decided to return to Heartland City as soon as possible after Yuma's visit to Spartan City. Whatever Yuma was doing, it would undoubtedly come to a head sometime soon, and he might need help dealing with whatever the Barians had in store.

It seemed that was the right decision. Not even a week after they returned to Heartland, the news began to report on riots around the world caused by a frankly obscene amount of Numbers cards that had appeared out of nowhere. They watched maybe five minutes of the report before they nodded to each other and set out. They didn't know where exactly they might be needed, but hanging around a hotel room wasn't it.

The sky burst to life out to sea beyond the docks, and so the docks were where they went. By the time they came near enough to get a grasp of the situation, the streets were already empty of people, except for the handful of duelists like them, who were determined to help Yuma.

It soon became clear that what Yuma needed was time, and they could give him that. Gauche wished Droite luck as they parted to stall two of the Barians, while various other duelists did the same and V—V, of all people—got Yuma the heck out of dodge. Gauche was really going to have to ask him and his family about _that_ little change of heart once they finished all this.

When he was blasted onto his back and watched his lifepoints drop to zero, he was frustrated that he couldn't pay Alit back for that time in Spartan City and he was frustrated he couldn't do more to protect Yuma—and for some reason, that stupid silver hair flashed in his mind too. Well, as long as V and his brothers and Kaito were still out there, the Barians were still going to have a fight on their hands. Maybe they'd even manage to take down a few of them, too.

The writing on his arm seemed to tingle as he disappeared.


	2. Hailing

**Like Ships in the Night**

_Part 2 / Hailing_

The writing on his arm seemed to tingle when he woke up again, standing on the dam where he had disappeared. So did everything else, in a way, so Chris didn't pay it much mind. He often forgot those words were even there, anyway.

"Let's go find Yuma," he suggested once he felt like his body was as solid as it was going to get. He held a hand out to Michael, who took it with a short, determined nod, and together they began walking back to the car.

The docks had been where the energy uniting the two worlds had originated, so it seemed prudent to check there first. They weren't the only ones who had thought so, either; on the way, they picked up Thomas and a few of the other duelists who had helped Yuma, and once they reached the docks, the rest were waiting for them, along with Yuma himself.

With one notable exception. Chris's heart sank as he looked around and found that Kaito was not among the other duelists. For a brief moment, he convinced himself that it was because it was more difficult to return from the surface of the moon than to be magically restored where they had fallen, until Yuma walked over to him, unusually downcast and fidgety.

"V," he said hesitantly, "I'm sorry. Kaito was...Kaito, he..."

Chris reached out to squeeze Yuma's shoulder. His fingers dug in harder than he meant them to, but Yuma didn't even flinch.

"I understand," Chris said softly. "Thank you, Yuma. For...trying to tell me."

Yuma smiled weakly and turned away to talk with someone else. Standing behind him had been Haruto, who stared up at him with unsure, shiny eyes once Yuma was no longer in the way.

Chris looked down at him just as hesitantly. He would never forget the part he had played in betraying and hurting the child in front of him for the rest of his life, nor was he unaware of how hesitant Kaito was to allow Chris anywhere near Haruto again, even if the two of them had mostly made up. But Kaito was no longer here, and Chris was probably the next best thing Haruto had right now.

It took a moment, but eventually Chris slowly lowered himself to his knees and held his arms out. Haruto didn't _quite_ dash at him, but it had probably looked that way from the outside as he threw himself at Chris's chest. Chris wrapped his arms around him and hugged him tightly, and he politely said nothing about the wet spot slowly coming into being on his shoulder.

Haruto was fast asleep, cradled in his arms and his lap, long before anyone else tried to approach him. When a shadow fell over him and then sat next to him, he wasn't all that surprised to see that it was Gauche sitting there, his chin in his hand and expression surly. He didn't have the impression that Gauche liked him much, but the man had spent enough time in Heartland Tower that he probably was fond of Haruto.

"So, you're supposed to be a good guy now, huh?" Gauche said after a moment of glancing between him and Haruto.

Chris shrugged his free shoulder. "I'm not really any sort of guy."

Gauche made a very skeptical sounding grunt in the back of his throat and went on frowning at him. Chris very calmly stared right back, hoping that was a good enough answer and also offhandedly wondering why it being good enough was suddenly so important to him. They were hardly more than strangers, after all. Despite working in the same building for a year, Chris only vaguely remembered running into Gauche once, for approximately as long as it took him to walk past him. It shouldn't matter at all to him what Gauche thought.

He supposed that if Gauche really wanted to take issue with him looking after Haruto for a few minutes and tried to argue about it, it would disturb Haruto, and he didn't want that. That was probably enough reason.

"Well, I guess if he doesn't hate you after what you did to him, it's fine," Gauche finally said, glancing toward Haruto. Chris unconsciously hugged Haruto a little tighter. He quickly relaxed his grip again as soon as Haruto made a noise.

Gauche didn't seem to have anything else to say, but he didn't seem very inclined to leave either. The two of them just sat there for a while, silently watching Yuma and his friends chatter away. Chris might have finally thought about leaving, except that the group around Yuma included Michael, and it was too nice to see his brother so enthusiastically accepted into the group for Chris to want to ruin it. Even if his other brother was standing around the edges, looking thoroughly annoyed they were still there.

It was surprisingly comfortable sitting there next to Gauche with Haruto asleep on his shoulder. At least, it was for Chris. Gauche seemed unable to sit still after the first couple minutes, his fidgeting steadily growing more obvious, until it seemed he would surely get up and leave any second. Then he turned toward Chris again, and Chris wondered why, if he actually did have something else to say, he hadn't just said it to begin with.

"You owe me a duel," Gauche said, finally.

"Haven't we already dueled?"

"No, I mean a real duel," Gauche said, poking him in the shoulder. "I'd like to see you get away with all those cheap tricks of yours in a real duel."

Chris glanced at the finger jabbing at his shoulder, and then looked back at Yuma and his friends. He wasn't sure he could keep his eagerness off his face if he let himself look at Gauche. In truth, he wanted to set Haruto down and offer to duel right then and there. He couldn't remember the last time someone other than his brothers or Kaito had asked him to duel—had actually wanted to duel him and sought him out rather than the other way around. And Gauche wasn't brilliant, but he was enough of a challenge to make it appealing.

Chris snuck a glance at Gauche out of the corner of his eye. The man was leaning over with the most serious look on his (actually rather handsome) face, like he might drag Chris off to duel whether Chris said yes or not.

"Give me your phone," Chris said finally, holding out his hand.

Gauche looked utterly confused, but he dipped a hand into his fluffy coat and set his cell phone in Chris's hand. Chris deftly hit the appropriate buttons and held it back out to him in almost no time at all.

"Call me," he said as Gauche took his phone back. "I'll duel you any time you want."

Gauche stared at his phone, dumbfounded, for several long moments before he grinned up at Chris. "Really? Any time?"

Chris started to nod, but quickly added before Gauche got too carried away, "Just give me a little time to adjust my deck first."

He probably should have done that the first time he'd lost hold of Numbers 9. It was his ace, after all, and while his deck could work without it, that was far from ideal. It had turned out to be lucky that he hadn't gotten around to adjusting his deck, but from now on, he was fairly certain it would never be in his hands again. Not to mention, much of his deck was still tailored toward countering Kaito or the Barians specifically, even if it would work well enough against others.

He was looking forward to coming up with something new. He already had a few possibilities sitting half-built in a drawer.

"Oh yeah?" Gauche said with a grin. "Our last duel actually made you nervous?"

Chris snorted lightly and turned away. "Hardly. It simply wouldn't be fair to you to overpower you so thoroughly again."

Gauche jerked next to him, but whatever he had been about to retort was lost to his own imagination as footsteps approached, and then stopped, behind them.

"Christopher..."

Chris tensed up, his back suddenly straight as a board. Gauche was already scrambling to his feet—no doubt out of habit than any real respect for the man.

"...Dr. Faker."

For a moment, Chris had to close his eyes and take a long, slow breath. His father had forgiven Faker, so Chris had also given up on his quest for revenge—as well as any misplaced anger toward the man's sons—but Chris was not his father and he had not quite been able to forgive the man himself yet. He might have tried for Kaito's sake...but Kaito wasn't here. He supposed he could try for Haruto's sake as well, though.

When he opened his eyes, Gauche was holding a hand down to him. Chris took it with some relief and let Gauche help him back to his feet without jostling Haruto too much. His hand was pleasantly warm and dry, and the grip his other hand had higher up Chris's arm was firm yet surprisingly gentle. Chris nearly stumbled into him once he was one his feet, but Gauche just guided him back upright and held him there, until most of the tingling had gone from his legs and he could move away on his own.

"Haruto, your father is here," Chris murmured as he gently shook Haruto's shoulder. Haruto woke up enough to help move himself as Chris passed him over to Faker, and then as soon as he was cradled in his father's arms instead, he fell right back asleep against Faker's shoulder.

Chris regarded the man silently for a moment. Thankfully, Faker seemed to be waiting to see what he had to say before he actually opened his own mouth again.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Chris said flatly. The same words Faker had said to him those years ago. Chris, at least, had the decency to not lie straight to the man's face.

Then he turned and walked away, brushing past Gauche without another glance back. It seemed it was time to finally collect his brothers and _leave_.

* * *

That evening, they gathered to watch Yuma's last duel with Astral. It seemed like it was only Yuma's close friends and himself and Droite, until Gauche happened to glance up and saw a trio of figures standing on a nearby rooftop.

"Those guys," Gauche grumbled, rolling his eyes, "they're always so dramatic. What can they even see all the way up there?"

Still, he could helped grinning a bit as well and he thrust his hand into the air to wave at them. After several excruciatingly long, undoubtedly embarrassing for Droite seconds, the tallest figure on the roof also raised his hand halfheartedly.

But they didn't come down to watch with the rest of them, and by the time the duel was over and Gauche could glance back up again, the three figures were gone.

* * *

"Oh? Chris, your mark is lighter?"

Chris paused in dumping vegetables into a pot to turn his arm over in surprise. Tron eagerly leaned across the counter for a closer look.

It was rare that Chris had his sleeves rolled up enough to clearly see the characters on his arm, rarer still that it was while someone else was around. For that someone to be Tron was—perhaps—a stroke of luck, as he undoubtedly remembered what those characters used to look like better than Chris did and was just eager enough to reintegrate himself into his sons' lives to be very nosy about it.

Admittedly, Chris had not given those characters much thought in years, and Tron was also the reason for that. In the face of his burning, all-consuming need for revenge against Dr. Faker, everything else had seemed laughably inconsequential, especially some soulmate he might or might not ever meet. He wore long sleeves so often that he rarely saw them anyway.

When he was younger, he'd actually given them quite a lot of thought. He'd painstakingly translated the characters until he thought he had a reasonable understanding of what they said. He'd practiced again and again what they should sound like, so he would be sure to know them when he heard them. Even now, years after he'd bothered to glance at them, it was probably the one bit of Japanese he could write by hand without having to look any of it up.

And he'd certainly spent some time contemplating their meaning and what they hinted at how he might meet his soulmate. _There you are!_ Someone who had been looking for him. _We got a nice mood going on here!_ Someone who might even be very excited to find him. _I challenge you!_ Someone who was a duelist.

Someone who had been looking for him specifically to duel him, maybe.

(He'd hoped so. Very much)

And it was someone who spoke Japanese. But none of that told him much at all, really. And then he had stopped caring.

Glancing down at those words now, Chris thought they did sound familiar, and not because he'd repeated them to himself so often when he was small. He could almost hear they way they had been spoken in his mind, could almost place where it had been and why, but every time he reached for the answer, it darted out of his grasp. It would undoubtedly come to him some time when he wasn't thinking about it at all, but for now, it seemed useless to keep trying.

"I think you're right," Chris said eventually. "They are lighter."

Tron smiled and sat back in his chair, his chin cupped in his hands. Chris could hear faint thuds under the counter where he must have been kicking his feet.

"So, do you know who it is? You shouldn't keep such big secrets from your father, Chris."

Chris frowned down at his arm for a few moments more. "...No, I don't."

Tron hummed, utterly unconcerned. "Well, you'll meet them again. It took me and your mother _years_ to figure it out."

* * *

"All right, Kaito, I think we're done. You can get dressed now."

Chris turned away to look over the last of the data collected about Kaito's condition, while Kaito sat up on the examination table and grabbed for his shirt. Ever since Kaito had miraculously reappeared along with the Barians after Yuma had won his duel against Astral a few weeks ago, Chris had insisted on regular check-ups to make sure Kaito was recovering well. Between Photon Mode slowly killing him, the way Heartland had tortured him, and the stress of dueling Mizael and then suffocating to death on the moon, Chris was somewhat concerned that even the Numeron Code couldn't bring Kaito back at full health.

He had also insisted that he be the one performing said check-ups, because he knew that Kaito didn't care enough about his health to bother on his own.

Luckily, it seemed that the Numeron Code had been able to restore him to full health after all, and Photon Mode didn't seem to be putting as much strain on his body as it had been either. Chris still didn't like the readings he got after Kaito had been using it, but Kaito also had much less reason to use it now, so he could almost recover completely before using it again.

The readings today were much better than they had been a couple days ago. But there was actually something else he had noticed while Kaito had his shirt off, and now that he was done looking over all the data, he could finally turn his attention to more trivial matters.

Chris turned back to Kaito just in time to catch his wrist before he could hide his arm inside his coat again. He spent a moment inspecting Kaito's arm, and then smiled up at him when he was sure he wasn't mistaken.

"Your mark is lighter."

"So what," Kaito said. He jerked his hand free and jammed his arm through the sleeve of his coat.

Now, Kaito had never been overly enamored with the idea of finding his soulmate—at least, once he'd realized Chris wasn't it—but he'd never been quite this hostile about it. Chris tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Do you know who it is?"

Kaito didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. The way he crossed his arms and frowned at one of the screens—that was conveniently not on Chris's side of the room—was answer enough. And so was the faint blush on his cheeks.

"Is it Mizael?"

Kaito tensed up so fast he nearly jumped and whipped his head around. "How did you know that?"

"Please, isn't it obvious?" Chris said with a smirk. Not that he'd been one hundred percent sure, but between their twin dragons and their personalities, he would have been extremely surprised to learn it was anyone else.

Kaito scowled at him even more, though disappointingly, that faint bit of pink left his cheeks.

"And what about you?" Kaito demanded after a moment with an irritated jerk of his head.

Oh. Chris was quite happy to tease Kaito about this, but he did not particularly want to talk about himself. He turned away to do...something on one of the screens that would give the appearance of suddenly remembering something he needed to do.

"I've met mine as well."

"Oh?" Chris could practically _hear_ the grin Kaito would be doing his best to suppress. "Sounds like we're both pretty lucky. Are you going to make me guess, too?"

"You can try, but I don't know who it is either."

"You don't?" Kaito said, surprised. "It's been a while since I've seen it...was it that generic?"

In an instant, Kaito had crossed the room to grab Chris's wrist. Chris sighed and let him tug his arm close and push up his sleeve to reveal the characters there. There was no denying it now, the way he maybe could have when Tron had noticed; those characters were absolutely more faded than they had been. They were more faded than Kaito's too, for that matter.

Kaito spent a long moment inspecting the words on Chris's arm. When he finally looked up again, it was with an odd look on his face.

"Chris, this sounds like—"

"I know who it sounds like," Chris said shortly. He jerked his arm away and pushed his sleeve back down.

He had been racking his brain since Tron had brought it up, trying to remember _when_ he might have heard it, trying to put a face or a name to the voice he heard when he read over those lines again and again. He thought he might have finally figured it out, too, except that he had a hard time believing it _could_ be that guy. He was attractive, anyone would think so, but...they had spoken to each other exactly twice, and he didn't have the impression of being very liked either time. Other than dueling, did they even have anything in common? Was there even any other reason for them to cross paths again?

Chris's pocket began to buzz. He fished out his phone before Kaito could say anything else, glad for the excuse to stop talking about this. As he read over the message and who it was from, his eyes widened a bit. Speak of the devil and he shall appear...

_Your deck ready yet? I'll be waiting._

Chris spent a moment studying the attached map to make sure he knew where he was going. Then he dashed off a reply and stuffed his phone back in his pocket to begin shutting things down so he could leave as soon as possible. _Finally_. He'd been beginning to think the man had forgotten about wanting to duel him.

"Who was that?" Kaito asked. Chris started a little. He'd almost forgotten Kaito was there.

He also wasn't sure he wanted to respond, given the previous subject, but eventually he said, "Gauche."

"...You gave him your _phone number_...?"

"He wanted to duel me," Chris said. He paused to look over the room and make sure everything was taken care of.

"Chris..."

Chris glanced over. Kaito had another odd look on his face. But instead of saying anything on that subject they both wanted to avoid, Kaito shook his head and said with a slight smirk, "You're going to destroy him."

Chris smirked right back. "Yes, I know."

* * *

Gauche scowled up at the sky from the flat of his back. That V...he'd been hoping that if it was a real duel, V would drop his cheap tricks and duel properly, but that was all he seemed to know how to do. That wasn't satisfying at all!

But the most frustrating bit was that it worked. This was far from the first time Gauche had ended up on his back this week. It didn't seem to matter how much he adjusted his own strategies either; V was utterly unmoved by most of it, and for those hits that actually landed, he found a way to counter them by the next duel.

(Gauche was reluctant to admit it, but he could see how Kaito had gotten so good with this immovable wall as his teacher.)

But that didn't mean he was going to give up. Far from it. Gauche pushed himself to his feet and demanded they start again. He was _not_ going to let someone with such an annoying style of dueling get the better of him forever.

* * *

Gauche frowned up at the sky from the flat of his back. That V...it seemed he could use other strategies after all, and he was just as annoyingly competent at them as the Burn and Negation effects he preferred. And thankfully, he'd started swapping out right as Gauche was starting to get bored of how he had been fighting.

It was still frustrating, regularly finding himself on the ground like this. And it just made him want to see V on the ground instead even more.

Just...maybe in a minute. Gauche shifted on the ground and let out a small groan at the bruises threatening to form on his back. It wasn't very comfortable, lying here, but it was tempting to keep lying here anyway. He finally pushed himself up on his elbows instead. He should probably make it clear he _was_ going to get up, eventually, but they'd been dueling for a while now and he could actually use a break.

He glanced up when he heard a faint sound come from V's direction. V had taken a few steps in his direction but stopped, and he was now staring down at him with wide eyes and an otherwise very blank look on his face. Gauche arched a brow as he stared back up at him, which only seemed to make V's face tighten up even more. What was his problem? Was he worried? Was he mad? Did Gauche offend him somehow by not getting right back up?

After a moment, V's brows knitted together and he looked away, frowning at the ground next to Gauche instead. Then he turned on his heel with a whirl of his curtain of silver hair and walked back to where he had been standing. There, he spun around again and sank gracefully to the ground, pulled out his deck, and started calmly shuffling through it in his lap. He didn't glance back up at Gauche again. Gauche had the distinct impression he was refusing to.

He was probably mad. But if he was going along with Gauche's desire for a break, then that was fine. Gauche sat up the rest of the way and pulled out his own deck. Taking the opportunity to make a few adjustments wasn't a bad idea either.

* * *

Gauche grinned up at the sky from the flat of his back and let out a bark of laughter. _Finally_. It had taken V switching to a strategy that involved a lot of swarming and straightforward attacks—the way Gauche had been hoping he would fight from the beginning—but Gauche had finally managed...a tie.

Just a tie. But so what if it was just a tie? Normally, he might have been irritated by that kind of result, but against V, it felt like progress. And anyway, it had been _fun_. Not that dueling V hadn't become its own kind of fun, but there was just something different about exchanging blows directly. There was something different about V, who was normally so composed behind his Trap cards and monster effects, passionately fighting him head on like that.

In some ways, he felt like maybe he'd finally seen V's real fighting spirit, after only seeing glimpses of it for so long. He knew that wasn't quite the case—he'd never felt like V wasn't fully engaged with their duels, or he would have walked away long before now—but it still felt that way. And it was something he already, very badly, wanted to see again.

"You got me."

Gauche turned his head to find V standing over him, his hand outstretched and a smile on his lips. The light of the sun setting behind him illuminated the edges of his hair, so he almost seemed to glow, but it was nothing compared to the way that smile softened his face.

Gauche stared up at him for a long time, momentarily struck dumb by how breathtakingly handsome this man was when he smiled like that.

Until that smile faded and V was looking at him with concern instead. "Gauche?"

Gauche sat up and took his hand, chuckling awkwardly as V helped him stand up. "I haven't gotten you yet," he said, very keen to avoid any questions about his momentary lapse of reason. "But you'd better be ready for when I do."

V smiled again, sending his heart fluttering up his throat. "I'll treat you anyway."

* * *

"Dr. Faker is planning to hold another tournament," V said, handing him an ice cream. As V sat next to him, Gauche couldn't help but eye the ice cream he was holding—or rather, the amount of _stuff _he'd asked for on it.

"Already? Wait, who're they even going have host it? With Heartland gone and the deputy mayor's a bore..."

V's mouth tightened in disdain as he dug at his ice cream with a tiny spoon. He seemed to have been able to put aside his uncharitable feelings for Dr. Faker during the past few months, but that didn't seem to be the case for Heartland. Not that Gauche could blame him much for that.

"We've been talking to someone named Smiley...I was worried he might be cut from the same cloth as Heartland, but he seems alright. You'll see what I mean when you meet him." He stuck a chunk of ice cream, chocolate, and cookie in his mouth and fell quiet until it was gone. "Dr. Faker is planning on making the WDC an annual tournament, but he's going to have another one before that to get everyone excited for it. Invite only."

"Oh yeah? Since you're telling me, I guess I'm invited?" Gauche said with a grin. He reached over with his own spoon and snagged a bit of V's ice cream. V's eyes followed it all the way to his mouth.

"That's right. Those of us who made it to the last eight in the last WDC, the Barians, a few of Yuma's other friends...we'll be using the Duel Coasters so we needed enough people." V absently tucked his hair behind his ear. "It's going to be publicized as a precursor to the WDC, but it's really more of a gift to all of us and Yuma..."

That seemed...surprisingly generous of Dr. Faker. Particularly when he had only thrown the first WDC as an attempt to collect the Numbers, and he'd never seemed all that enamored with dueling itself. Gauche had a suspicion this wasn't actually his idea, or a lot of it wasn't. But more importantly—

"We're using the Duel Coasters again?"

V casually reached over with his spoon and snagged a bit of his ice cream. "My idea."

Frankly, Gauche couldn't care less _whose_ idea it was. He jumped up with a wild grin, nearly crushing his ice cream in his fist in his excitement. "That's the best idea! I can't wait to be part of that again!"

* * *

As the tournament approached, holoscreens began appearing around the city to advertise for it with what little footage there was from the last tournament.

And Gauche finally had the satisfaction of sending V flying to the ground.

For the first few moments, he almost couldn't believe what he'd just seen. His monster's attack connecting, V's monster getting blown away and V along with it, V's lifepoints finally ticking all the way down to zero...

Then the reality of V's prone form on the ground finally sank in and he threw his fists in the air and let out a whoop of delight. And then ran forward to give V a hand in getting up and maybe gloat a little to his face rather than several feet away.

V was already sitting up by the time Gauche reached him, his pretty hair strewn haphazardly about his shoulders. The look on his face quashed most of Gauche's thoughts of gloating. He actually looked pretty peeved under all that hair, although he also wasn't looking at Gauche, so it was hard to say whether that was directed at him.

Then V glanced up at him and most of that dark look disappeared. He sighed and reached up to take Gauche's hand, his eyes glittering with a challenge.

"Good job. That won't be happening again."

Gauche grinned and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the holoscreen above them blared to life—with his own face, too, so he kind of wanted to see what part of the WDC they'd picked for this one. Something from the underground part of the Duel Coaster track, it looked like.

_"There you are! We got a nice mood going on here! V, I challenge you!"_

_"...Hmph, you plan to fight me?"_

V's hand was still clasped in his own, so he felt it when the man went suddenly went very still. Gauche was too busy frowning up at the screen to look at him. Why did that sound so familiar? Like something he had been trying to remember for months had just been dropped in his lap?

"So it is you..."

Gauche's gaze darted back down to his face. V was staring at him with a surprisingly vulnerable look, like he'd never really seen him before. Gauche stared back at him, bewildered, until his face and his words and his _words_ finally all clicked into place.

"It's _you_?!" he blurted. He yanked V's arm forward and shoved up his sleeve. Sure enough, it was his own words that were inscribed there, and they had faded as much as the short phrase on his own arm. A phrase which he had very clearly heard just seconds ago from that screen.

His fingers brushed over the words, checking them over again just to make sure. V's muscles tensed under his fingers and his hand twitched in Gauche's grip.

"So it would seem," he murmured, his voice tight.

Gauche glanced back up at him. He still looked a bit unsure and lost, which was pretty much how Gauche felt about this too. This wasn't at all how he thought meeting his soulmate would go. Even after he'd discovered they'd already met, he'd been imagining something...else when they found each other again. He hadn't imagined it would feel like the world had suddenly turned upside down. And he _definitely_ hadn't imagined it being _V_.

Then something else clicked, and Gauche frowned suspiciously at him. "Did you already know?"

V pressed his lips together and glanced down at where Gauche's hand was still resting on his arm. "I suspected."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Gauche demanded.

V didn't answer that right away, giving Gauche plenty of time to come up with his own reasons. V didn't like him. V already liked someone else. V didn't want to be with someone who couldn't beat him. V didn't want to be with someone who _could_ beat him. V thought _he_ liked someone else and didn't want to get in the way. V was actually secretly dying from some unknown malady—

"Because," V said finally, meeting his eyes again, "even if this is meant to be, I didn't want to fall for you because I felt like I _had_ to. And I didn't want you to feel obligated to like me either. That's not the kind of relationship I want to have. With anyone."

That wasn't in his list of reasons.

Gauche's heart felt like it was in his throat again.

"That's the relationship I thought I wanted. When I was a kid," Gauche admitted sheepishly. It sure as hell wasn't what he wanted now, though. As of approximately five seconds ago.

"Well, so did I," V said with a faint smile. "When I was a kid."

Gauche nodded jerkily. There was something else he wanted to ask, but...well, it was kind of embarrassing just _asking_ it. So it was another few seconds of opening and closing his mouth before he could manage it, and his cheeks felt warm when he finally did.

"_Do_ you like me?"

V looked away and chewed on the inside of his lower lip. "More than I thought I would," he admitted after a moment.

Gauche's hand tightened around the one he was holding. That probably should have been insulting in some way, but honestly, wasn't that pretty much how he felt too? _More than I thought I would_...And anyway, insulting or not, unsure of his own feelings or not, it was hard not to feel more than a little affected by hearing this proud, beautiful man admit that he liked him. It was tempting to just kiss him right now and let that lead where it may.

"I need some time to think about it," Gauche said instead, feeling somewhat like he was having to force the words out.

V smiled and squeezed his hand back. "Good."


	3. In Consort

**Like Ships in the Night**

_Part 3 / In Consort_

_Do you like me?_

Those words kept on echoing in his mind—even more than the words scrawled on his arm—and while he hadn't been completely sure of his answer at the time, he'd become quite sure of it over the past week.

"Of course I do," Chris muttered to himself as he scrolled through his collection of videos of Gauche dueling. He selected one he hadn't watched yet, and then promptly tuned out as he waited for Gauche to appear, rather than his opponent.

Now that he knew for sure it was _him_—now that he felt like he was _allowed_ to like him because he wouldn't be falling for someone else's soulmate (again)—he could say with absolutely certainty that he liked Gauche and was attracted to Gauche and he had been for quite a while now. Maybe it had even started back when Gauche had demanded a duel from him, or maybe it had only been after Gauche had gotten to his feet after the first duel and immediately demanded a second. He couldn't say for sure when he'd started liking him.

But he could pinpoint exactly when he'd first realized he was attracted to the man. There had been one afternoon when Gauche had been slow to get up after losing a duel, when he'd pushed himself up on his elbows and lay there with his knees bent and legs spread and looked up at him like he was daring him to do something...Chris had had to turn away very fast to keep from staring at him too long, and he had had more than one dream since then with Gauche sprawled the same way in his bed. He had, of course, thought of Gauche as attractive before then, but it was only then that he knew how attracted he was personally and wouldn't mind doing something about it.

Then he hadn't. Because Gauche might have been better off with someone else, he he didn't want to get in the way of that.

And he didn't look up their duel either, because maybe that phrase on his arm wasn't exactly right, but as long as he didn't know for sure, he could still have some hope that it was. He didn't want to know for sure until he was sure in his heart that Gauche was the right one after all.

Thankfully, the advertisements for the tournament had made that decision for him. Otherwise, he might never have checked.

The video ended and Chris scrolled through for another one. As a Pro Duelist, Gauche had quite a lot of videos of his duels out there, although Chris had been somewhat reluctant to watch them until now. He had been content with dueling Gauche himself a few times a week. Gauche had suggested they wait until the tournament to duel again, however, since it would only be a couple weeks, so Chris had to content himself with watching his duels with other people instead.

...In retrospect, he probably should have just accepted Gauche was the one as soon as he started rearranging his schedule to spend more time with him.

...Which had been quite a bit earlier than when he'd received that beautiful vision of Gauche on his back.

...Kaito had almost certainly been thinking it as soon as Gauche had texted him that first time. Hopefully, Kaito wouldn't say so once Chris actually told him they'd figured it out.

Even Gauche couldn't make up for an utterly lackluster opponent, though. He liked Gauche quite a lot, but it was the Gauche who never backed down and fought passionately to the end that he liked most, and while he was politely keeping a smile on his face, Gauche just had no need to fight so hard in this particular duel. Chris closed out of the video and looked for another one.

He settled on Gauche's duel with Yuma from the last WDC. Even though this upcoming tournament was actually mostly his own idea, and the holoscreens around the city advertising it used all the footage they could from the previous one, Chris didn't have anything to do with putting together the advertisements so there was plenty of footage from the WDC that he hadn't seen. Like this duel, for instance. He probably should have watched it by now, though; a duel against Yuma was sure to bring out the passionate Gauche he'd come to enjoy so much.

...Of course, he also had to put up with listening to Mr. Heartland every now and then. Chris's eye twitched a little as the man's grating voice introduced the field and the players. Mr. Heartland had played no small part in why he'd avoided watching any of the WDC for so long.

Then his eyebrows shot up and he leaned forward in his seat. Gauche had just stood up on his Duel Coaster and turned around to face Yuma head on.

Of course, it was a very Gauche-like thing to do that. If anyone else was going to do that, it would be him. But it still caught him by surprise. Chris had thought he'd been the only one who had done something that reckless. And he'd only done it once.

But not only had Gauche stood up right from the start, he seemed determined to get back up and keep standing any time he was knocked down as the duel progressed. No wonder he had been so excited to hear they would be using the Duel Coasters again; he seemed to have had quite a lot of fun last time.

Chris smiled a little as Gauche replenished Yuma's lifepoints to make it a fair fight.

But Yuma didn't seem to be giving him the fight he wanted. Gauche slowly grew more and more frustrated until he finally snapped.

_"That was such a cheap attack! I don't...I don't wanna have such a lame duel with you!"_

Chris paused the video and stared out the window. What had set him off had been Yuma dealing him effect damage while smoothly avoiding taking any damage himself—exactly the way Chris preferred to play. Yuma's tactics were quite good, but they were tactics Gauche hated to play against.

It wasn't as though Chris hadn't noticed that from the beginning. He was still amazed, even now, that Gauche hadn't just walked away after a handful of duels like that, and watching this exchange only rekindled that feeling. Granted, Gauche had only ever seemed frustrated by their duels and not like he'd hated them, and he _did_ always come back for more but...he really hadn't seemed as happy to duel Chris as he had those handful of times when Chris switched to a more straightforward deck and playing style.

His fingers tapped absently on the tablet in his lap. It really wasn't the way he preferred to duel...but if it got Gauche to smile like that again...and there was nothing saying he had to duel that way always from now on...

Chris unpaused the video, and his chest felt tight every time Gauche's grinning face appeared on the screen, but he was too lost in thought to pay much attention to anything else.

* * *

Gauche made his way through the familiar halls of Heartland Tower with a single-minded purpose. As he reached the room where he'd been told he could find Kaito and his guest, the doors slid open and the two of them walked out. Whatever conversation they had been having died as soon as Kaito had to stop short to keep from walking right into Gauche.

"What are you doing here?" Kaito asked in surprise. Gauche ignored him. He wasn't the one he was here to see.

"You're Mizael, right?" Gauche asked, looking pointedly at the boy next to Kaito. He only knew the blond in passing, but this was where Alit had said he would be, and he did look familiar now that he was standing in front of him. "My name's Gauche. Can I talk to you?"

Mizael and Kaito glanced at each other, and then gave him identical looks of confusion. "About what?" Mizael asked.

"V—er, Chris Arclight." He wasn't sure which name Mizael would be more familiar with. V hadn't ever corrected him, but he seemed to be using his real name just as much these days. "You're the one who dueled him back when...you know. Right? Can you tell me about it?"

Gauche had spent most of the last week or so trying to learn more about V without having to resort to asking his brothers or Kaito, who he didn't like and might give something away. It hadn't gone particularly well. During the WDC, the only duel that had been recorded in full had been his own duel with Yuma. There was absolutely nothing of V's duel with Kaito. He couldn't find any evidence that V had participated in any duels before the semi-finals either, which had him seriously wondering if he'd even earned his Heart Pieces himself.

(If he'd known about that at the time, he definitely would have had something done about that. But V had obviously been qualified, so he couldn't bring himself to be too annoyed about it now.)

In fact, the only footage Gauche could find of his dueling was from the Duel Coasters part of the tournament, and there still wasn't much of that, since there had been so many of them for the cameras to focus on. Gauche was more than familiar with his dueling and attitude from that time anyway.

He had finally resorted to talking to Yuma and his friend Kotori about it—which turned out to be the best decision he could have made, because Yuma and Kotori seemed to have been there for every duel and almost every event that had happened over those handful of months.

Yuma very enthusiastically told him all about V's duel with Kaito—and about V and Tron's surprise history with Yuma's father and why they hated Dr. Faker so much. (Kotori had been reluctant to share that bit, but Yuma was already halfway through the story before she could even try to say anything.) And Yuma had very enthusiastically told him all about V and his family's contributions to the fight against the Barians.

That they had been keeping an eye on what was going on, so they could step in to protect Yuma if he needed it.

That Yuma had briefly lost the Original Numbers, but V and Kaito had built a portal to the Astral World to save him, and then dueled one of the Barians together to make sure Yuma could leave safely.

That V had taken charge once the Seven Barian Emperors had appeared, keeping Yuma out of their hands while everyone else tried to defeat them.

That after the death of their brother, V and III had thrown themselves into the fray to give Yuma time to escape to the Barian World to try to end things with Don Thousand directly.

Unfortunately, Yuma had only seen the very end of that duel, and he couldn't seem to describe what had happened without stumbling over his words. Gauche had decided that rather than force him to live through it again, he might as well just go and ask the Barian they had dueled directly. He'd have to talk to Mizael about the rest of the duel anyway.

Mizael crossed his arms and eyed him with a frown. "I suppose. Why?"

"He's...my soulmate," Gauche said. That still didn't feel quite real, even a week later. "I want to know more about him."

"I knew it," Kaito said with a smirk.

"Oh?" Mizael's shoulders relaxed somewhat, and he even had the hint of a smile. "Congratulations. He's a fine human; I would have been honored to have him as my soulmate."

Gauche's eyebrows shot up. "That's a pretty high opinion you've got there." Kaito feeling that way he would have expected, but he didn't really expect that from anyone else.

"Indeed," Mizael said, and then said nothing else to elaborate on it. Instead, he tilted his head slightly and added, "If you want to know about Christopher, wouldn't it be better to ask his brothers? Michael could tell you about our duel as easily as I can."

"I want to hear it from someone less biased," Gauche said. Or less biased in V's favor, anyway. Though from the sound of it, Mizael really might not be super biased in his own favor either.

"Hmm," was all Mizael said to that, but he did look marginally more approving. "Well, it might take a while to go through all of it. Do you want to go somewhere...?"

"You guys can talk about it in my apartment," Kaito said, gesturing vaguely upwards. "We were about to head up there anyway."

Mizael's cheeks tinged the faintest shade of pink, but he nodded to Kaito and sent Gauche a questioning look. Gauche shrugged and gestured for Kaito to lead the way.

Gauche had been in Kaito's apartment a handful of time while he'd still been working for Mr. Heartland. It had been vast and utterly lifeless then, with only the bare minimum of furnishings to make it seem like someone lived there. He had also lived there by himself. Dr. Faker and Mr. Heartland let him spend as much time as he wanted visiting his brother, but Haruto had not been allowed to live with him. It was too dangerous, they had said. They were all just tools, was what they had meant.

The apartment Kaito led them to now was completely different. It was slightly smaller, for one thing, a more appropriate size for one or two or even three people, and there was more than one piece of furniture. And there were also toys and papers and books scattered about, evidence that not only was Haruto living with him again, so was Dr. Faker. Luckily, it seemed neither of them was here right now.

Gauche had to wonder how much time Kaito actually spent here, how much he had actually been able to forgive his father for the shit he'd put Haruto through, or if this effort had been mostly led by Haruto himself.

Once they had settled in the living room with the tea Orbital 7 had been threatened into making for them, Mizael finally began his story. He seemed to have been thinking about what he was going to say the whole way up here.

"It was after we had all defeated that first group of duelists protecting Tsukumo Yuma," Mizael said with a slight nod toward Gauche. "While I was searching for Yuma and Kaito, I came across Christopher and Michael instead. They had been waiting to intercept us—to intercept _me_, in particular. They goaded me into a duel for Yuma and Kaito's locations. Christopher even mentioned he had been Kaito's mentor. He knew I would never refuse after hearing that..."

Mizael covered the duel itself with excruciating detail, which Gauche found interesting—because he never had gotten to fight against any of the Arclights' aces while they still had them—but not as interesting as the overall picture of it and all the other little details he slipped in.

Like that V and III had absolutely done their research and gone into that duel prepared to shut down the Barians' trump card with alarming ease.

That the Arclights had their own unique Rank Up Magic card. How the heck had that happened? Then Kaito had interjected that V had made it for them, and Gauche was even more impressed and disgruntled. That guy was really out there making his own cards? And that wasn't exactly a standard card either; it had to have had some weird powers to it.

That V and III had also been prepared to trap any and all Barians who came their way, to keep as many of them occupied and away from Yuma as possible. V was still wearing that bracelet of his even now; he wondered if it had any of that power left. Next time they met, he'd have to ask.

That V and III were even more annoyingly competent fighting together than V was by himself, and Gauche was disappointed he couldn't have faced their Numbers but also somewhat relieved they were gone now.

And also that no matter how scarily good they were, Mizael was even more so.

"Before I could deal the final blow, we all saw a star streaking through the sky. It was Kaito, heading to the moon." Mizael glanced over at Kaito, who was watching him like he didn't already know this, like Mizael hadn't just said the most astonishing thing yet. "They seemed to have been waiting for that timing. Christopher called up Yuma so he could see what was happening, and so he could speak with both of us.

"The key needed for the Numeron Code was on the moon. It needed specific Numbers for it be released—namely, mine and Kaito's. Christopher and Michael had been stalling for time while Kaito left for the moon, so he would be sure to make it there without anyone stopping him and accidentally ruining everything."

"And for Yuma to get to the Barian World," Kaito added.

"And that. But that wasn't as important," Mizael said. Kaito rolled his eyes, but his mouth twitched into a smile too.

"Anyway, the important thing is that they sacrificed themselves to give us time to escape," Kaito said quietly.

"Yes," Mizael said, turning back to Gauche. "But it was more than that. I've thought about this a lot since then—and I've spoken to Christopher about it as well, and he didn't deny it...The Numbers required to summon Numeron Dragon were mine and Kaito's. It had to be the two of us, in that place on the moon, for it to work the right way. Christopher and Michael..._couldn't_ have won that duel, and they challenged me knowing that."

Gauche stared at him for a minute, still trying to wrap his brain around everything that had just been thrown at him. V and III...had started that duel just to stall for time, knowing that they wouldn't be allowed to win it? They'd challenged Mizael...knowing they weren't going to walk away from it? Not because of a lack of skill, but because that was the way it had to be...

He suddenly wished V was here with them, or he was wherever V was, so he could drag him off and show him exactly how he felt about that for several hours.

"Did they throw it?" Gauche asked finally, his fingers digging into the couch cushions. He didn't think they would have—that _V_ would have done something like that, but if they absolutely had to lose...

Mizael pursed his lips with displeasure for the very idea. "No. Nothing like that. They fought me with everything they had. It was simply with the knowledge that fate would not be on their side." He paused and glanced thoughtfully over at Kaito. "Although Christopher probably did have a contingency plan, in case they did actually beat me. That would be like him."

"He was going to come duel me himself, if he had to," Kaito said. "We had a suit and stuff ready—"

Mizael snorted lightly. "You would have both ended up dead."

"Probably," Kaito said with a shrug. "What Chris was really hoping for was that he'd find one of the other Barians first—Durbe maybe—and you'd find them and then he could beat them and survive _and_ tell you where you were supposed to go. But I know he also really wanted a chance to duel you, so I don't think he was unhappy with how things worked out."

"_I_ want to duel you," Gauche blurted out. Sure, Mizael didn't have his stupidly overpowered Numbers anymore, but he'd undoubtedly be a challenge even without it. What he'd just told them about his duel with V and III made that clear enough.

Mizael smirked and took a sip of his tea. "Find me at the tournament, then. I'd be honored to duel any one of you."

* * *

The morning of the Heartland Limited Carnival dawned clear and bright, but chilly. By mid-morning, the Duel Coaster Stadium was filled with the dull background roar of thousands of excited voices from the packed stands, and the day was shaping up to be one of the warmest of the week—which meant it was comfortable just standing there, but they were all sure to be freezing once they were speeding along the Duel Coaster track.

Gauche absently adjusted his fingerless gloves and his feathered collar as he stood there in the center of the stadium with the other contestants. Since it had only been about eight months since the WDC, it was barely spring and some chilly days couldn't be helped, but it was certainly going to help to make things interesting later. It was nice that his favorite coat was already decently warm.

The floating platform MR. Heartland had once used suddenly shot into the air for the new MC to announce the beginning of the tournament. Gauche glanced up briefly at the giant hologram of the man and shook his head a little. V had said he'd been concerned that Nico Smiley would be similar to Mr. Heartland in all the wrong ways, and it was easy to see why; the man looked like if Charlie Chaplin had decided to dress like a bee and become a sleazy used car salesman, and his mannerisms were just as wildly theatrical as Mr. Heartland's had been. Still, when Gauche had met him at the banquet last night, Smiley had seemed like a genuinely decent person, just a very enthusiastic one. He'd eagerly congratulated him on his win in the Spartan City tournament, even though it had been months ago, and he'd spent several minutes chatting with Droite about the nitty-gritty details of managing a Pro Duelist.

Speaking of the banquet...Gauche frowned and scanned the crowd on the field, searching through the other contestants, the attendants, and the torrential downpour of confetti. The banquet had been considerably more relaxed than the one before the WDC had been, since all of the contestants either knew each other or knew Yuma, but Gauche had felt much the same frustration, as there had been one person in particular that he had never managed to catch up with no matter how many times his silver hair flashed from across the room.

Gauche finally spotted V standing almost at the end of the line of Duel Coasters, chatting with Mizael while Kaito leaned against one of the coaster cars nearby. V glanced up briefly, but he only waved his hand once and then turned his attention right back to Mizael and Kaito.

It wasn't _quite_ a dismissal, but it sure was close enough to be annoying. Gauche scowled and started picking his way through the thin crowd to give V no other option but to pay attention to him for a minute. Then he stopped as he noticed Kaito making his way across the field towards him.

"Why is he avoiding me?" Gauche demanded as soon as Kaito was close enough. He should just go over there and ask V himself, but if Kaito had been sent over here, there was probably a reason.

Kaito raised an eyebrow. "Who said he was avoiding you?"

Nevermind. Gauche was going to march over there anyway.

"Wait, wait," Kaito said, grabbing his arm before he could get too far. "Okay, he is. But he asked me to tell you to wait a little longer. He won't keep avoiding you once we're all dueling."

"Why?"

"You think if I knew, I wouldn't tell you? It'd serve him right. I'm not his errand boy," Kaito said with a sideways glance back at V, though there wasn't any real venom behind it.

Gauche conceded the point with a shrug and also looked back up at V. Mizael was still there, but he seemed to be talking to Tron now, while V's attention had moved on to his brothers. Even from here, Gauche could see the smile on his face while he listened to whatever III was so enthusiastically telling him. Perhaps it was just excitement over being here in the first place; III had been the only one of them who hadn't taken part in this bit last time, even though it was impossible he didn't have a full Heart Piece like the rest of his family.

It was a scene he would have been hesitant to interrupt even if V didn't have that charming smile on his face. Unfortunately, someone else decided to interrupt it for him, as Smiley announced that it was time for everyone to get into place to officially begin the tournament.

Kaito lifted his hand in a wave and walked off, heading back toward the group at the end of the row and the coaster car he'd already claimed for himself. Gauche snuck one last glance at V gracefully leaping into a blue car, and then he jumped over the back and into the seat of a nearby red one.

He was already placing the completed Heart Piece he'd received with his official invitation into its place by the time Smiley even got to that part of his preprepared speech. After all, it wasn't like Gauche hadn't done this once before; he knew how this worked. He barely glanced over the course map that popped up—just enough to check where the Trap Points were, so he could avoid them.

Smiley started counting down. _Finally_. Gauche grabbed on to the joystick and leaned forward.

"—Three! Two! One! Fire!"

Gauche slammed the joystick forward. His coaster car shot out at the front of the pack, around the loop, and out onto the course.

He made short work of the first person to challenge him, some friend of Yuma's who he only vaguely recognized. The kid seemed just as happy to be dueling him as he was to be here in the first place, so he didn't feel too bad about knocking him out so early. Maybe later, he'd go find that kid and give him an autograph or something.

He didn't see anyone else for a while after that, except for from a distance on some other track. The Duel Coasters were fun and a pretty unique idea, but since they were so spread out, they did make it more of a challenge to actually come across any of the other duelists. Of course, that was part of the fun, but it also meant a lot of time to just think and strategize, and of course, his thoughts very quickly drifted to V and what he might be doing.

Was V expecting Gauche to go find him? Was he planning on finding Gauche instead? Was it too early to go find him? It would be fun, dueling him like this again, but it might also be fun to try to get all the way to one of the arenas with him and duel him there. Maybe he could even lead V to the Canyon Field where he'd dueled Yuma last time—although if V had gone back to his preferred deck, he wouldn't be summoning many monsters, so he wouldn't be affected much by the field's penalty—

"Gauche!"

Gauche's heart skipped a beat. He spun around in his seat.

Behind him, swiftly catching up with his car on the same track, was a blue coaster car. The one belonging to V, who stood proudly with one foot on each seat, his hair whipping in the wind behind him like a silver pennant.

Gauche had never seen a more beautiful sight in his life.

"There you are!" V called out. He brought his duel disk up and bent his knees slightly. "We've got a good mood right here. Gauche, I challenge you!"

It wasn't _quite_ the same, but it was close enough and he knew exactly what he needed to say in return. Gauche scrambled to his feet, grinning from ear to ear as he climbed on top of his car and raised his duel disk. "Heh, you want to fight me? Bring it on!"

"You're both idiots!" Kaito yelled at them as he passed by on a lower track. Gauche could barely hear him over the wind rushing past his head and his heart beating wildly in his ears.

To his delight, V's deck was a new one, and he was more than willing to use more straightforward tactics today too. Gauche could tell there was more to the deck than that—that it was probably similar to his first deck in having two mostly different strategies built in—but that just made it feel even more meaningful that V had chosen to save his annoying Burn and Negation effects until he was facing someone else. Right now, V was giving him exactly the kind of duel he loved.

Maybe he could make it up to him later by not complaining so much when V switched back to the tactics _he_ loved. Maybe.

Of course, just because it wasn't the style V preferred, it didn't mean he wasn't good at it, and he'd learned from his mistakes from the last time they had dueled and he'd lost. He wasn't about to lose today. Very soon, Gauche found himself facing down the final attack with nothing left to defend himself and not enough lifepoints to get through it.

"Wait," he said, throwing up a hand, before V could declare his last attack. V hesitated but dropped his own hand, waiting patiently to see what he wanted.

Gauche frowned down at the cards in his hand, not really seeing them. What he wanted was for this not to end yet. Not his time in the tournament, exactly, but this time with V. All he'd wanted for the past few days was to be with V again, and now he had it, but as soon as V declared that last attack, Gauche would be rocketed off into the sky to spend the rest of the tournament watching from the stands. Sure, they could see each other again tonight, but tonight wasn't _now_.

"...More than I thought I would," Gauche murmured and chuckled at himself. It was hard to believe he'd been so unsure about his feelings for V a couple weeks ago, when now all he wanted was to remain at his side.

He glanced up at V and was suddenly struck by an idea. A fantastic, exhilarating, ridiculously stupid idea. If V didn't yell at him for it, it'd be more than he deserved.

Gauche carefully knelt down to grab the throttle and slow his coaster car down a bit. V frowned but also hurried to slow his car down, ending up right on Gauche's tail but not in danger of crashing into him. Gauche grinned at him as he stood up again and dropped his arm, nodding that it was fine to go ahead with the attack.

V frowned at him for another moment. He raised his hand and declared his last attack.

Gauche jumped.

* * *

One moment, Chris was wondering what on earth Gauche was planning. He would just have to wait and see, he supposed, as he declared the attack that would drop Gauche's lifepoints down to zero.

The next moment, he was watching his attack go through, and then Gauche _jumped off the back of his coaster car_—

And the next, he was on his back, looking up into Gauche's grinning face. Gauche was sprawled on top of him, and the track was still whizzing along below them, a constant reminder of just how fast they were still going.

Distantly, he saw the seat of Gauche's coaster car fly off into the air without him. Distantly, he thought he could hear the stadium explode with noise, although he was sure they couldn't hear the stadium from here. Distantly, he could feel his heart trying to beat out of his chest and his pants seemed to have suddenly gotten tighter and the words on his arm might have been tingling.

The next moment, he wasn't staring up at Gauche's grinning face anymore, because Gauche was kissing him instead. Chris's eyes slipped shut, and he grabbed onto Gauche's fluffy collar as he kissed back, trying to make it clear what a _stupid_ thing that had been through sheer force of lips and desperate clutching hands alone. If Gauche instead got the impression that he was desperate for something else, well, that was also true.

"Ha, you should have seen your face," Gauche murmured against his lips.

Chris shoved him back just enough to scowl at him. "You _idiot_," he hissed. "What the hell were you _thinking_?! What am I supposed to do if—"

He decided not to finish that sentence and jerked Gauche down into another kiss instead. He could feel his eyes grow warm just at the thought of what could have happened if Gauche had missed, especially now that his initial shock had faded and the echoes of that panic were crashing down on him. He was an _idiot_ and an _imbecile_ and Chris could no longer think of a future that didn't have him in it. If he'd ended up falling...

Well, for one thing, Chris would have blamed himself for the rest of his life for encouraging that stupid risk-taking behavior.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" Gauche said after a minute, but at least now he had the decency to sound ashamed. But only briefly, because then he grinned and shifted a bit in Chris's lap and said, "Seems like you didn't hate it _that_ much, V."

Chris bit his lip to keep himself from doing something stupid, like kicking him off or grinding against his hip.

"Get off," he muttered instead. "I still have a tournament to win."

"Yeah, yeah." Gauche carefully rolled over and slid down into the second seat of the car. "You'd better win it, 'cause now you're playing for both of us. That was pretty mean, you know. You couldn't've waited to knock me out 'til we were Underground, at least?"

Chris took a moment to collect himself before he sat up and slid down into his seat beside him. "I couldn't wait that long to see you," he murmured. "Next time."

Gauche snorted lightly. "That's your fault. You could've come and found me last night. I was looking for you."

"If I had found you last night, we would never have made it back to the party," Chris said, determinedly keeping his eyes on the track in front of him and not anywhere near Gauche. His throat felt very dry just saying that.

Gauche chuckled and placed a hand on his thigh as his leaned over to murmur closer to his ear, "Oh, so you picked a time when we had to behave instead, huh? How responsible, V."

Chris tensed and glanced over at him and that cheeky grin on his ridiculously handsome face. He was right, of course; Chris did not trust himself to keep his hands to himself at this point if they were anywhere more private. But rather than say so—again—he grabbed Gauche's collar and tugged him into another kiss. Gauche made a faint noise and cupped the back of Chris's head with his hand as he enthusiastically kissed back. His fingers sank into Chris's hair and curled against his scalp, and Chris had to fight back a moan of his own.

Maybe he should have just gone and found Gauche last night. He'd been somewhat nervous that Gauche was going to turn him down—even after Kaito had mentioned that Gauche had been asking about him—so he'd wanted to give Gauche the opportunity to cut ties in public and not feel pressured into accepting their bond, but it would seem he'd had nothing to worry about. Gauche's answer after all that thinking was obviously the same as his. And they could have spent all night repeating that answer over and over.

Oh well. It wasn't like last night was the only night they ever could have had. Tonight would be just as acceptable.

"It's Chris," he murmured as he finally pulled away.

Gauche stared at him, looking bewildered. "Huh?"

"You don't have to keep calling me 'V'. You can call me Chris. V is...not someone I want to be with you."

Gauche stared at him for another moment, still looking somewhat bemused. Then he grinned and leaned in for one more quick peck.

"Good. Chris suits you better," he said against Chris's lips. Then he fell back into his seat and pointed dramatically forward. "All right, Chris, let's go win a tournament!"

Chris rolled his eyes, but he couldn't help but smile a little as he pushed the joystick forward, urging the coaster car to catch up with the rest of the contestants. "Of course."

* * *

When they glided into the Space Field some time later, someone was already there waiting for them: Mizael...and Kaito.

Chris immediately turned the joystick to take them back out. "Oh, we'll find somewhere else. Don't let us interrupt you—"

"Wait, Chris—" Kaito called before they could get anywhere. "I'm not here to duel. I'm just a spectator like him," he said, gesturing at Gauche.

Chris glanced over at Gauche. He looked just as surprised as Chris felt. Chris shrugged and pulled the coaster car to a stop so they could both jump down. If that was the case, then there was no reason to leave, though he was having trouble believing it.

"You lost already?" Chris asked as they walked across the field to where Mizael and Kaito were waiting.

Kaito scowled and jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. "This guy couldn't wait and demanded a duel before we even got to the Underground. Kinda like someone else I know."

Mizael flipped his hair back from his shoulder. "What's the fun in waiting until we're here? We duel like this all the time. Isn't the point of today to have fun with those rolling coasters?" He glanced over at Gauche and finally looked a tiny bit apologetic as he added, "Looks like you couldn't find me in time. That's a shame; I was looking forward to it."

"S'not like we can't duel some other time," Gauche said with a shrug.

Chris eyed both of them with surprise. When Kaito had mentioned that Gauche had wanted to talk to Mizael about him, he hadn't considered that it might include making plans to duel each other. Although now that he thought about it, it shouldn't surprise him at all; of course Gauche would want to duel someone as skilled as Mizael. Maybe he really shouldn't have taken Gauche out so early...

"Since we're all here, why don't we have a Tag Duel?" Chris suggested after a moment.

Gauche whirled toward him, a grin already breaking out on his face. "Can we do that?"

"I don't see why not. As long as we both agree to it," Chris said with a nod to Mizael, "and how it might affect the results, it shouldn't be a problem."

He could probably mention that this whole tournament was basically his idea in the first place, so if anyone should be allowed to bend the rules a little, it was him...but he wasn't going to. The people who needed to be aware of that—the ones who had the authority to say whether they could have a Tag Duel or not—were already aware of it.

"Interesting. I did want to duel you one-on-one...but as he said"—Mizael nodded at Gauche—"we could do that anytime. I've never Tag Dueled with Kaito before..." He looked briefly over at Kaito, who nodded back at him, his duel disk already back on his arm. Mizael turned back to Chris with a smirk. "Very well. We'll accept this duel."

Chris smiled as he turned away to get into place, Gauche trailing along next to him. Absently, he wondered how Smiley was faring right now; not only had he had to account for Gauche and Kaito sticking around long after they should have left, but now he was going to have to scramble to announce a Tag Duel in which half the participants were no longer part of the tournament. He half expected Smiley to cut in at any minute; these fields weren't completely cut off from the main commentary, after all.

"You better not drag me down, Chris," Gauche said with a grin as they stopped and turned back around to face their opponents.

Chris smirked, thinking back to the last time he'd heard very similar words from Kaito. That had also been against a Barian, though a considerably less friendly one under considerably more urgent circumstances. That had seemed like fate, and so did this, facing down his dearest friend and his soulmate with his own soulmate at his side, just because they wanted to.

"I wouldn't dream of it. There'll be plenty of time to drag you down later."

Gauche snorted, but he was still grinning when Chris smiled over at him. "Oi, not in front of all the kids."

"My apologies. Shall we?"

Chris and Gauche raised their duel disks in unison, and across the field, so did Kaito and Mizael.

"Duel!"


End file.
